The Interview
by Lady-AuRevoir
Summary: Diva's interview before her hibernation.


**The Interview **

[ **A/N: **The idea was influenced by _Interview with a Vampire_, which is the ironic title of this short story. This is Diva's first interview with Okamura, despite the two of them not getting along from the beginning. Diva actually allowed herself to be interviewed before her hibernation. Questions from fans, as well others were inspired into this. ]

Okamura was nervous, beyond nervous at that. He was sitting across from the second queen of chiropterans. Their first encounter didn't go as well as he planned when he had tracked her down along with Saya and the members of Red Shield. It was just the two of them in the room, though at first it wasn't such a good idea, as suggested by David. From the stories he heard about Diva, he had expected her to drain her dry once she suggested the time and place.

She didn't have long soon before she fell into her own slumber, so Okamura couldn't miss a chance with her.

Diva set her cup of tea down. She'd gotten into the habit of doing that lately. Nathan had told her once her mother did the same when she was still alive.

Her sapphire eyes raked over the reporter. She could sense his anticipation, excitement at the opportunity of interviewing a chiropteran. Diva's trust in humans had lately gotten stronger, for once she was easy around them all.

"Mr. Okamura, you came here to interview me."

"Y-yes. It's kind of embarrassing, but I don't know where to start."

"C'mon, it's easy. Ask me anything you like. I don't mind now...I can finally tell my story to someone I trust."

He blushed.

"Um...okay."

"I'll start first. I was born August 4th, 1833 in Bordeaux, France."

He wrote something down in his notebook, nodding his head.

"I understand that your mother was dead when you were born. Could you explain that for me?"

Diva nodded.

"Her face was completely destroyed. I'd like to think that when she was alive she was beautiful. When Joel I discovered her in Iceland and purchased the body, bringing the body to his garden—the Zoo—home of where Saya and I were raised as guinea pigs. From her pregnant belly they cut out two cocoons containing me and my sister Saya. The cocoons wouldn't open at first just from a scalpel, so when Amshel accidentally cut himself the blood awakened us. I was raised in a tower with no name, while my sister was named after the mummy and in the care of Joel Goldschmidt I. All I had was the tower."

"How long did you spend in the tower?" asked Okamura.

"The next fifty years for me were nothing more than pain filled isolation, a lab rat for the sick curiosity of Joel and Amshel. Though I was taken care of, it was only to keep me alive for more experiments. I was given barely the minimum of three meals a day. I was given shots, laid on cold metal tables, cut open. There were no stitches required because I always healed...always.

Sometimes I'd passed out from the pain. I would cry at times, especially at night. It'd get so dark and cold. I hated those times the most. As I got older I learned to keep the tears at bay, so I started singing."

"At what age?"

"Around nine. Not only did the experiments become worse, it became something more."

Her nails dug into the arm of the chair, she began to shake her head in disgust.

"Amshel began looking at me certain ways. I'd gotten used to the stares, but somehow I knew this was different. On days when my blood wasn't taken or when a scalpel wasn't pressed to my bare flesh, he'd come to me any time of the day. I didn't look at him, but he sure looked at me. He started touching me. I thought they were mere caresses, like the ones he gave me when I was quite small. But these were searching hands. He started kneading my flesh, his hands would travel further than they should have. I told him to stop once, but he wouldn't listen. He wouldn't go beyond a certain point..."

Okamura gulped, his heart leaping in his chest. He'd known she had it rough, but he didn't think that she'd had it this bad. Not only did she live in a dank tower for the first fifty years of her life with barely enough sustenance, she'd been the object of a man's sex fantasy.

"A certain point?"

"My private parts," Diva said bluntly. Okamura fidgeted in his seat, looking anywhere but her eyes which had seemed to darken now that she was revealing her past life. Diva didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable. Of course not she'd gotten used to it, she even probably even dreamed about it still.

"Oh."

"Yes, although, Amshel didn't just molest little girls if you catch my drift."

And that was his cue to move on.

"How long did you endure this abuse?"

"Until...I was sixteen. He just stopped. I guess I'd gotten old for him, but I would soon find out he had other plans for me. Then one day, I received a visitor, a special one at that. She told me she'd liked my voice and I liked hers."

"Saya, your sister?"

He jotted more words into his notepad, nodding.

"Yes. I didn't know who she was at the time. I found her pleasant nonetheless. She gave me a name, a name for me alone. We became close, she visited me everyday—skipping meals and lessons just to be with me. I felt special because of that. I'd met my first friend and she was lovely. I wanted so bad to meet her outside, so I told her one day I wanted to get out. I was always frightened that Amshel or Joel would come by and take her, then I'd never be free. Much to my surprise, Saya promised to let me go. I waited and waited for her. I was so scared. Once she released me, she wanted me to sing at the party for Joel. I think back to those days, the firs words between my sister and I were _  
"Who are you?"_ and those words, our first meeting turned into bloodshed.

"She gave me the name Diva, because of my fair voice. I loved her for that. I wanted to be close to her, to talk to her. But I was so filled with rage. Once that door opened, I knew I didn't have to worry about it being locked again. I was finally free. You can guess whom I visited after I slaughtered all of those people, I enjoyed draining Joel of his blood. I hated him so much. I hated him. For years I built up my hate, clung onto it. It was the only thing that kept my strong. As I stood amongst the dead corpses, flames roaring in the background—I showed no remorse taking the lives of those humans. Today, I regret making Amshel my chevalier."

"What possessed you to make him your Chevalier to begin with?"

Diva shrugged.

"I still don't know the answer to that myself. Maybe I needed someone to take me out of there, use them as they used me. Then discard of them when the time was right. But I couldn't take care of myself, I didn't know how. So he stuck around. I wanted to take Saya with me, but we were already gone. The next day these people had come to get Saya and Haji—he was to be our bridegroom to produce more offspring for experimentation. Amshel kept me all to himself.

"It wasn't soon before long he had me sleeping with men. He'd bring them to my bedroom, sometimes two at once. I was numb, I didn't care. I developed a sick persona afterward, I actually enjoyed the sex—with human men and chiroptera men alike. The ones Amshel created from my blood. I was ruined for me, I didn't believe in love or happiness anymore. I was incapable of such an emotion."

A moment of silence. Diva drank her tea, humming to herself.

"I didn't enjoy traveling the world, nor did I enjoy Amshel ordering us around as though he were some Kingpin or something."

"I see. But as long as you were free, you didn't care. You received no education, love, or human contact. I remember your sister told me Amshel resented her from freeing you because that gave you the chance to gain your own feet, search for your own identity as well as the potential for free thought."

Diva giggled.

"He wanted me to act just like a doll. He made me understand physical violence more than physical intimacy. I used to think my existence was quite tragic. As the sixth descendant of the original Joel pointed out my home in a lonely tower, all I knew for fifty years. Fanatical idolization only ensured me that I was too alienated from a normal, healthy existence to understand humans. Until I met Riku. When he came to the Zoo, he'd mistook me as Saya. And I mistook him as...lunch. Sorry, I have a dark sense of humor."

The two of them laughed out loud, Okamura rather dryly, still scribbling in his notebook.

"I wanted to leave the boy alive a while longer, but then he was gone. Saya appeared and... I reverted to my child demeanor."

"Child demeanor?"

"A second personality. It was to cope with the pain I suffered at the hands of Joel and Amshel. But by then, as you already know, I was too far gone to be normal. Saya and I fought, it was such a pathetic reunion. I taunted her, like a game of cat and mouse. You know, to be honest, I never truly hated Saya."

"But you were envious of her family life, am I correct?"

"Yes. I always wanted a family of my own, but Amshel couldn't see that. If he were alive today, the idea would be insane. He once told me years ago that guinea pigs shouldn't be allowed to breed. I didn't listen to him. His opinions no longer mattered to me. A family, my family. Soon, it wouldn't be a dream any longer."

Okamura waited for her to continue. He was literally on the edge of his seat.

"Your attack on Red Shield Headquarters...you weren't looking to mate with Riku Miyagusuku?"

"No, goodness. I'm old enough to be his grandmother's, grandmother's, grandmother. I only wanted to see him, talk to him. I had no intention of killing him. I don't know how, but that boy seemed to have flipped a switch inside of me. I just wanted to see if he had that affect on everyone else. The next events that led up to our meeting, I had no idea would happen. I didn't know I was going to lose my Chevalier to a King that night...or that he whisk me away, kill Amshel right before my eyes and so on. Or so I though I'd seen Amshel die.

"I was told the origins of my mother and her mother before her. I was finally given the truth of my kind, and I met a man whom I knew I'd love for the rest of my life. Kanin is a wonderful father. I love being a mother. My daughters make me so happy."

She clasped her hands.

"How did you feel when you found out you were Saya's substitute for the experiments?"

"I didn't feel anything. Chances are, if she and I had had our lives reversed I know we'd both still be here. It's what you make out of life, not in the circumstance. I have the life I've wanted, the security of lasting love. I'm no longer a prisoner in someone's test tube. I think I understand what my mother wanted, the cycle of bloodshed to end with us. Someday I will tell my children the story, right now I want them to have everything I didn't have as a child. My father is here. I have my family here. I don't think I could have it any other way. I'm so tired now...I want to rest."

"_Saya, I want you to kill me." _

_She wasn't teasing. _

"_Why? What about your family..." _

"_I must die, Saya. At the hands of someone I love...I chose you. I chose this theater for our final battle. Do you see the backdrop? Pretty ironic, huh?" _

_The tower where her younger sister had been held. The moon hanging plump in the night time sky. _

"_Considering all in my past. You're the only one who can fulfill my wish." _

"_Diva...you told me that you can't changed the past, but you could make a future for yourself. " _

"_Yes. That was for you, not for me. Please, Saya. I'm not afraid." _

_Tears streamed down her face as she looked at her twin sister. She gripped both hands on her sword. _

"_All I ever wanted was a family of my own. Amshel could never understand me...he felt as though I still needed to be kept in my cage, observed under his microscope. Perverted prick...his name alone makes me want to peel my skin off and wash it in acid." _

_Diva attacked her, Saya blocked Diva's sword with her forearm a cut opening in the skin. _

"_Is this what you had take care of? This is why you called everyone here to witness your death? It doesn't have to be this way!" _

"Diva, um, I think I have more questions to ask you. Huh?"

Diva was slumped in her chair, her hands folded in her lap. A tendril of hair escaped to fall onto her closed eyes.

"Diva? Diva..."

Okamura waited and waited. Suddenly he smiled.

"I can't believe she fell asleep already."

He flipped through his notebook, her story on page after page. If he put this in the paper...no, he wouldn't do that. The door opened behind him.

"She's asleep."

It was her lover to come take her away.

Diva was laid to rest in the Miyagusuku crypt alongside her sister. Okamura didn't publish the story of the two queens. He burned the pages from the sisters. He knew he'd never forget them, it could have been a story for the ages.


End file.
